Maan Panu comes from Kumaon in Uttarakhand and has spent years working out of a Mumbai studio, where a touch of Pahadi melody still finds its way into his songs. He is known for "I'm Done", which went viral, along with "The Last Letter" and "I Met Her Again", and for his time on I-Popstar. He writes about what he is actually feeling, and listeners have related to it in ways he can't fully count. In a conversation with TMM India, he talks about his roots, the stories behind his songs, his bond with Mazaak and what he wants to write next.
Home and the Years Since
Maan says that when he began, even he didn't know what he was doing. The four or five years since, between home and Mumbai, filled his music with everything he saw and went through. "I think my music has now become more about my life."
On his roots, he says, "Now I have clarity about my roots, about the musicality of Uttarakhand, and about the music that we Pahadi people share." He means the music people back home sing at functions and festivals, which he sometimes works into his songs, as in his recent release. No single place or memory from Kumaon keeps returning, since he had few experiences there. His friends are still there, and it was leaving that showed him more of life.
A Song That Got Bigger Than Expected
Going on I-Popstar was a random decision. He thought he'd just give it a shot. What could possibly happen? If something good came out of it, great. He auditioned with "I’m Done", a song he had written simply to put down what he had felt, and Salman Khan even posted about it. Maan says he had no idea it would become so big or that people would take it in so personally.
That is when he realised that what was happening to him was happening to everyone else too. While "I'm Done" was going viral and getting so many likes, reply versions were coming out every day, and his team picked the one with Shuddhi and released it. People have related to the song in more ways than he can say, yet it still belongs to him. Whenever he listens to it, the feeling he had when he first felt it returns.
Writing "The Last Letter"
The idea for this one came on the final day of I-Popstar. After the finale the group was heading back from the set; everyone else was asleep and Maan sat looking out of the window when it occurred to him that a story was still waiting to be told, something left unsaid.
It goes back to how he felt at that time, going through anxiety and losing someone he loved so much. He wanted to capture that experience, the kind you seldom think about otherwise. "Somewhere or the other, I had written it for myself, not for someone else," he says.
Working with Mazaak
Mazaak was Maan's flatmate before anything else. They both made music and jammed in the flat, Maan writing and Mazaak producing. "Goddess" was the first song Maan made after leaving home, and the two made it together. He then wrote "I'm Done" and thought of working on it with Mazaak, but he went on I-Popstar and it wasn't taken forward. Once he was back, they made "The Last Letter" together.
His earlier music was different. He made it entirely by himself and perhaps was too involved to make the kind he liked. Working with Mazaak showed him there was much more to explore with sound.
The Story Behind ‘I Met Her Again’
At Mumbai airport Maan was standing to one side, waiting to collect his luggage, when someone walked up, stood practically face to face with him and said "Maan." He remembers thinking, "What just happened?" They were from another country, he says, and so was he. When he looked at them he didn't feel what he used to.
It lasted a few minutes. He thought about what might have been had they met earlier, yet at that moment he felt nothing, and that made him see something in him had changed. It felt good, a little freeing. Then he wrote the lyrics.
Hum bhi apne shehzaade hain
Humein khwaab-waab nahi aate hain
Hum bhool gaye hain saara kuch
Ab yahin humaari baatein hain
What Comes Next
He wants to move on from heartbreak. He'd like to write about what happens when you have everything you wanted, and he is already writing more about life and friendship, and about how people go away, meaning friends and family rather than partners.
A lot of this comes from his own listening. As he puts it, "Whenever I listened to a song, I would feel, 'Man, this is something that has happened to me too.' The song has said what I couldn't say myself."
A small point like that can heal you, he explains, and it is what he hopes his listeners will find. "I want people who listen to my songs to feel that too... that there's a friend who's writing something about this."
Asked which song by anyone he wishes he had written, Maan picks "Tere Pyaar Mein" by Kaavish. He says he really relates to it, so much that he wishes it were his, since it would have let him say so many more things.
